Move over, moon rocks: There’s a new kind of space rock on display at Space Center Houston.
The official visitor center of NASA’s Johnson Space Center on Friday, March 1, became only the second place in the world where the public can view a sample of asteroid Bennu collected and returned to Earth by the space agency’s OSIRIS-REx mission.
“It’s very rare to have a piece of an asteroid,” said Paul Spana, Space Center Houston’s director of collections and curator, in an interview with CollectSPACE.com. “Prior to this, the Japanese had only had two asteroid sample missions a few years ago, and they were only able to return a very small amount.”
“Other than this one, there are no other specimens on display in the world other than the Smithsonian and soon the University of Arizona. So in this case, it’s rarer than moon rocks,” Spana said.
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The 0.005-ounce (0.15-gram) pebble is the total amount OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) collected from asteroid Bennu in October 2020 and returned to Earth in September 2023. representing only 0.1% of the material. The black rock with white flecks, kept inside a small stainless steel flask in a pure nitrogen environment, is displayed under a magnifying glass given its reduced size.
“I also spent a lot of time trying to find the right height that was good for kids but not so low that adults had to bend over,” Spana said. “I made marks on my office wall to find that height. We tested it with a real sample last night and it worked.”
The new OSIRIS-REx exhibit is also located just inside the main entrance of Space Center Houston, along the path visitors use to access the Starship Gallery, the Lunar Samples Vault, and the outdoor exhibit of NASA’s 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft in Independence Plaza. It also includes a video presentation that briefly explains the mission’s history and provides a 360-degree up-close look at the specimen on display, as well as a computed tomography scan that reveals the rock’s interior.
“It has a high carbon content, which is made up of oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. And what’s really cool about it from the scientists’ perspective is that, speaking of hydrogen and oxygen, the clay is saturated with water. So all of that makes up the building blocks of the things you need for life,” Spana said. “This is one of the most exciting discoveries they’ve made by examining samples at Johnson Space Center,” he said.
Guests interested in learning more about the sample can watch short presentations by the Houston Space Center crew every hour in front of the exhibit.
The sample is on loan from NASA for two years, but Spana is optimistic the deal will be renewed.
To celebrate its debut, for example, the first 200 visitors to see the exhibit on Friday were each gifted a 3D-printed model of Bennu as a souvenir keepsake. For those unable to attend or arriving later, Space Center Houston has made the model’s file available on its website for anyone to download and print.
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., was the first museum to acquire a sample and unveiled Bennu’s piece in November.
The Alfie Norville Gem and Mineral Museum at the University of Arizona in Tucson is preparing to unveil the third and final piece of the asteroid, which will be on public display on Wednesday, March 6. The evening event will feature a presentation by OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta, who is also an adjunct professor and director of the Arizona Center for Astrobiology at the University of Arizona.
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Houston Space Center will also feature members of the OSIRIS-REx team working to analyze and catalog samples at Johnson Space Center.
Salvador Martinez, OSIRIS-REx’s chief astromaterial curation engineer, Nicole Lunning, chief OSIRIS-REx sample curator, and Justin Filiberto, research office branch chief and acting curation branch chief of the Astromaterial Research and Discovery Science (ARES) division, at the Johnson Space Center’s Thought in late March. He is scheduled to attend the Leaders Series presentation.
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